Silent Good Bye
by Luke Skywalker
Summary: AU. Anakin's thoughts as he attends Padme's funeral.


The procession was twenty blocks, over a bridge and up a hill long. People from all over lined the streets of Theed. Everyone on Naboo it seemed had shown up. They cared, and her family was grateful. Even many who had opposed her in the Senate came and lined the streets in a show of respect. Black shrouded everyone and they kept their heads lowered until the opportune moment. As the spectators, her people, looked into the open casket drawn by horses down the streets, the women gasped and clapped their hands over their mouths in horrible realization of the truth they had been forbidding themselves to truly believe. Their husbands or sons held them for comfort, but were silently weeping as well. She had saved them all as queen once upon a long time ago when the Trade Federation had threatened the peace and civility that Nubians prize. She had fought against the bigger, more militant and violent systems that opposed Naboo, physically on the battlefield and vocally as a Galactic senator. She was a symbol of Naboo until the day she died, and today her people mourned her under the dark, cloudy Nubian sky.

But I saw none of them. My red-rimmed blue eyes stared blankly at her peaceful, motionless face as I walked slowly behind the casket. Her chocolate brown curls were studded with flowers and blue ribbons as it was strewn on her final pillow, enveloping her face in a soft brown halo. She was my angel, my life, breath and soul.

My life is over.

My happy, truly happy life is over, or has it begun again? I was unhappy as a slave on Tatooine, even though I had my mother with me. My life did not truly begin until she came crashing into my life. As she walked into my master's part shop, I knew she was my chosen one, my angel come to save me from unhappiness and slavery. I had told her I was going to marry her, and she only laughed melodically. I was only a young boy, she had said, as I was nine and she fourteen.

_"I won't always be,"_ I had said, and she had stuttered in her steps as she heard the conviction and seriousness in my voice.

Throughout the years, as we both grew, me as a Jedi and she a politician, my love and admiration grew, too. I remember Master Obi-Wan reprimanding me about a Jedi's concentration and how I must always be alert when he would catch me day dreaming, but little did he new who or what I was day dreaming about. Finally, I was assigned as her Jedi protector ten years after we had been separated. I was now taller than my master and had grown into a nineteen-year-old man. I could only imagine how she had grown. My breath caught in my throat as I had gazed upon her in her formal senatorial dress. How beautiful indeed. She smiled at me and I knew that I needed her in my life as much more than merely an acquaintance. I told her so later, kissed her, and she did not recoil. Marriage and love are allowed by the Jedi Code, but they are not encouraged by any means because of how much a Jedi must be focused at all times. She knew this, but our love overflowed and was undeniable, and we were married after her assassin was found and destroyed.

The Clone Wars ravaged our galaxy as more systems separated themselves from the Republic. I was gone all the time to fight, and she was the only thing keeping me alive. Force, how I wished she could have been with me all the time, but her senatorial duties and rational thinking kept that from happening. After Obi-Wan and I rescued the Chancellor (that slime) from General Grievous, my angel and I were reunited and she told me she was pregnant. The joy of those words has never left me, and I had swept her up into my arms and cried out in happiness. Again, the wars kept us apart for the longest time, and I was barely there for the birth of our two children, my new angels, Luke and Leia. Little did I know that with their birth would come my angel's death.

She had left me two beautiful remnants of her, but Padmé Amidala Skywalker had been my whole life, my soul, and now my heart was cracked, bleeding and torn to pieces. I cradled my newborn son snuggly in the crook of my left arm. I would not allow the mechanical monstrosity of a prosthetic that was my right hand to touch my precious boy. I had always felt incomplete with my new hand, but Padmé had simply kissed the knuckles and fingers gently.

_"It's a part of you now, and I love all of you, Ani,"_ she would always say.

The casket came to a stop next to her gravesite, a cemetery down the street from the lake retreat where we had been happily married. The casket was lowered to hover just above the six-foot grave and I felt the warm sting of salty tears in my eyes. I never knew I could weep so much; I had thought I had no tears left. I stood by her casket, Sola, her mother and father standing beside me, Sola carrying my Leia. As the holy man began the prayers, I blanked out the words, my eyes only on Padmé. How could the Force do this to me? Why couldn't it allow me to have peace and happiness in my already torn to pieces life? I have children now, but my wife is gone, and without her, I can never be whole or truly happy again. This woman had been the only one who ever loved me of her own accord. Of course, my mother loved me, but I was her son. She _had_ to love me. Padmé _chose_ me as her husband. She _chose_ me as the father of her children. My eyes traveled down her body to come to rest on her folded hands. Draped between and hanging over them was her silver chain that held the Japor snippet I had given her when I was nine years old.

_"It'll bring you good fortune,"_ I had told her. But now she was dead, what did _I_ know about good fortune? The only fortune I ever received in my life was to have Padmé and our children as part of it, and that had not lasted as long as it was supposed to. We were supposed to be together forever, but vows, I suppose, were made to be broken. A single tear dribbled down my cheek and onto Luke's swaddling clothes as I continued to gaze at my wife whom I would never speak to again. Damned be the Force for Sith's sake! I was through with it. I never wanted it to be a part of my life any longer. It had caused so much pain and suffering in the galaxy through the hands of Chancellor Palpatine and in my life as it took my mother from me, caused me to almost turn to the Dark Side and stole my wife from me. Damn the Force, the Jedi, the whole galaxy! I just want my wife back, I want Luke and Leia to now their mother, and I want my life to be complete for once.

"The family may now come forward and pay their final respects," I heard the holy man say through the cloud of emotions. I took a deep breath and moved forward, but her father pulled me back.

"You last, son," he said. "We'll give you as much time." I nodded my silent thanks and watched Sola, Ruwee and Jobal Naberri approach their daughter and sister's body and lay a rose on her hands. Jobal lay a soft kiss on her daughter's cold cheek before turning away and silently taking Luke from my arms.

My slow, robotic steps took me to the edge of her casket and I gazed down at her lifeless form. My eyebrows crinkled in pain and my chin began trembling as a tear of mine fell upon her porcelain cheek. I leaned over and shakily kissed it away, then kissed her softly on her lips. Those lips had never been as cold and unfeeling as they were now. I straightened to my full height, took another shaky breath and ran my hand through her chocolate locks softly one last time.

"Good bye, my angel," I breathed as the holy man began covering her body in her funeral shroud and Jobal pulled me back to her. Padmé's casket was closed, and as they lowered it into the soft earth of the planet she loved so much, Luke, still held in his grandmother's arms, began to wail, and my soul wailed with my son. I broke and collapsed onto my knees as I had done when my mother had been buried. I gripped the soft grass until my knuckles were white, and ripped. I ripped again and felt as thought I could destroy the Force itself if I tore enough from the ground, but I knew this was impossible. The Force surrounds everything and binds everyone, but it could not bind my beloved angel and me. Ruwee pulled me from the ground and put his hand on my shoulder in a comforting grip. It did nothing for me, however, as I saw Padmé's casket fully lowered and the crowd dispersing.

"We need to go home, son," he said gently. "You don't need to see this." I glanced down at him gently.

"I watched her die," I said. "I can see her be at peace." Ruwee knew it was pointless to argue with me, knowing I was as stubborn as his daughter had been. He nodded softly and led Jobal and Sola away as I stood watching the dirt part my angel farther from me.


End file.
